Electron cyclotron resonance
heating in a short
cylindrical plasma system
VIPIN K YADAV and D BORA
Institute for Plasma Research, Bhat,
Gandhinagar 382 428, India
E-mail: vipin@ipr.res.in; dbora@ipr.res.in
Abstract.
Electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma is produced and
studied in a
small cylindrical system. Microwave power is delivered by a
CW
magnetron at 2.45 GHz in TE$_{10}$ mode and launched radially to have
extraordinary (X) wave in plasma. The axial magnetic field required for
ECR in the system is such that the first two ECR surfaces ($B = 875.0$ G
and $B = 437.5$ G) reside in the system. ECR plasma is produced with
hydrogen with typical plasma density $n_{\rm e}$ as $3.2 \times 10^{10}$
cm$^{-3}$ and plasma temperature $T_{\rm e}$ between 9 and 15 eV. Various cut-off
and resonance positions are identified in the plasma
system. ECR
heating (ECRH) of the plasma is observed experimentally. This heating
is because of the mode conversion of X-wave to electron
Bernstein wave
(EBW) at the upper hybrid
resonance (UHR) layer. The power mode
conversion efficiency is estimated to be 0.85 for this
system. The
experimental results are presented in this paper.
Keywords. X-wave; electron cyclotron resonance; upper hybrid resonance.